EXCITING SCREENING & CONCERT

Thursday, November 9, 7pm Apparition of the Eternal ChurchCheck out the trailer here.

Let me tell you why I’m so excited for this event: I am a devout atheist anticipating a pseudo-religious experience on Thursday. We’re presenting an austere film in a majestic setting, an astonishing piece of music and complex ideas about it, an other-worldly work in midtown Manhattan.

In this hypnotic film, 31 fascinating people — playwrights, poets, Wigstock drag queens, Scissor Sisters, professional models, documentary filmmakers, pianists and performance artists — put on headphones and discuss a piece of music director Paul Festa plays for them. Some describe childhood memories. A man who once played the piece compares its complexity to DNA. Harold Bloom (Yale literary critic) says listening to this music is like being inside Dante’s Inferno. John Cameron Mitchell (director of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “Shortbus”) is so distraught he nearly takes a knife to his own ears. And poet and cultural critic Wayne Koestenbaum says experiencing Messiaen’s piece is “like being f***ed by light.”

The film is imbued with an intense sense of anticipation: What is the music, and when will we hear it? The music is Olivier Messiaen’s composition for pipe organ Apparition de l’eglise eternelle. You will only get a taste of it in the movie.

And then you will be bombarded by it on the largest musical instrument in New York City, the majestic organ at St. Bartholomew’s Cathedral. You will be transported, elevated, shocked and inspired. At Rooftop Films, we are always looking for inventive and unique ways to present cinema, and this combination of film, music and architecture is sure to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for all those who attend.

Get the HERE. Tickets are $10 / $25 / $35 / $100, available HERE and at the door on the day of the show.

+The $35 and $100 tickets also include admission to a reception after the film where you can mingle with the participants and the filmmaker and enjoy free refreshments sponsored by Dewar’s.

++ A one-year (46 issues) subscription to New York magazine (valued at $9.97) will be included with any $25 or higher ticket purchase.